If I remember correctly, I decided that I was going to love Superbad the second I heard the title. Probably not a great thing for a critic to do, but at least I improperly fell in love with a movie that I can now justify falling in love with – Superbad is a romp through high school that, only one year removed from the institution, made me nostalgic for secondary education.
Superbad
4 Stars
You may have read my review of Knocked Up, in which I praised the film for being a hilarious but realistic look at the complications of real-life people and their relationships. Well, with apologies for being one of the zillion film-goers that will easily compare these two Judd Apatow-produced films, but Superbad is Knocked Up for teenage guys who don’t care about anything else more than loosing their virginity and sobriety – a comedy that, though spiced up to be a wide-release summer movie – is still mostly a real-life look at two best friends.
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Hey, do you remember that night in high school that you and your friends tried to impress some girls by buying them alcohol? Maybe. But do you remember that night in high school that you and your friends got hit by two cars, escaped the fuzz and danced with a girl who really felt the flow? Probably not, so it’s a good thing we get an entertaining, outlandish but still grounded comedy like Superbad so that we can experience such a night.
We’ve got Michael Cera and Jonah Hill playing two guys trying to seal the end of their high school careers by nailing the dream girls, only to find many a hilarious obstacle thrown in their path. Then, on the other side, we have first-time actor Christopher Mintz-Plasse playing the absolute geek who, amazingly enough, spends a Friday night with two cops drinking and tackling hobos. Let me repeat that for you: “spends a Friday night with two cops drinking and tackling hobos.” Okay, if the end of that sentence wasn’t enough for you to decide that you need to see Superbad, I don’t think any other clause I could write will be, so don’t be afraid to stop reading this review entirely.
Screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been writing a the script since they were in high school ten years ago, and it shows. The final product is packed with so many flawlessly executed jokes, there’s no way even the funniest screenwriters today could have written this script in any less time. Though the first act primarily serves to set up the characters and their mind sets, it continually adds more and more laughs per minute until you the end, at which point you can’t believe how much your roaring, doubled up in your seat. The humor mostly comes out of the dialogue of the actors, but for Mintz-Plasse’s character’s story, just the set-up is enough to make you howl your lungs out. Every laugh is outrageous, but still possible enough; and thanks to the strong characters and their actors, it it all works in the end.
There’s no ass that’s easier to kiss in Comedy than that of Judd Apatow, so I can’t help but feel like a tool for heaping on another load of big wet ones on his newest film. But you know what, when that ass belongs to a guy who is behind the majority of all the notable comedies from the past few years, consider these lips taken.